Joe Rogan had no interest in ever meeting Jeffrey Epstein even before the disgraced financier was indicted on sex trafficking charges involving minors.
As the U.S. government continues to release troves of the Epstein files — emails, photos and other information gathered to build a case against him prior to his death in 2019 — Rogan’s name popped up after one of his past podcast guests attempted to set up a meeting between him and Epstein. Lawrence Krauss, a well-known physicist and cosmologist, exchanged
emails with Epstein in 2017 where he was asked about setting up a dinner with Rogan.
In one of his replies, Krauss claimed Rogan was “more timid than I would have thought” while informing Epstein that his desired meeting wasn’t happening. On the latest episode of his podcast, Rogan addressed his name being mentioned after Epstein apparently wanted to meet with him.
“I’m in the files for not going [to meet with Epstein],” Rogan said on his podcast. “Because Jeffrey Epstein was trying to meet with me. I was like what? But I never would have went anyway. It’s not even a possibility that I would have went, especially after I Google’d him.
“I was like what the f*ck are you talking about? This was like 2017, one of my guests was trying to get me to meet him. I was like bitch, are you high? What the f*ck are you talking about?”
Epstein, who worked in banking and finance, was charged with solicitation of prostitution back in 2006 in Palm Beach, Fla. after a 14-year-old girl’s parents told police he paid her for a massage. That led to a more extensive investigation with allegations from numerous underage girls claiming Epstein sexually abused them at his mansion.
The FBI got involved in the investigation but that ended after Epstein agreed to plead guilty to two state charges of solicitation of prostitution and of solicitation of prostitution with a minor under the age of 18 and he was sentenced to serve 18 months in a minimum security facility.
Allegations continued to mount against Epstein and the Federal government finally charged him with sex trafficking of minors in 2019. He was arrested but barely a month later he died in his cell with medical examiners concluding he died by suicide.
More recently pressure from politicians on both sides of the aisle led to President Donald Trump’s administration releasing thousands of documents related to the Epstein investigation. Ex-presidents, celebrities and numerous executives have been named in the files, although in Rogan’s case he only appeared after shutting down an attempt to get him to meet Epstein.
“If I was a guy who was sucking up to the rich and powerful,” Rogan said about people being drawn to Epstein at that time. “If I was really interested in hanging out with rich and powerful people. Some people get intoxicated being a circle of rich and powerful people. They don’t have any ambitions of being one of those people, they just want to be around them.”
